George Orwell once said, “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” His point has been proven for him a hundred times over, not least in the past few weeks, as Dr. Joseph Meaney shows his July 30 article “The Rhetoric of ‘Vaccine Hesitancy”. Dr. Meaney, who serves as president of the National Catholic … Read more
Raymond Cardinal Burke suffers from what I call the Ratzinger Syndrome. Remember God’s Rottweiler? The scourge of the Catholic Church? The inquisitor? Torquemada! There was no end to the slanders heaped upon Ratzinger’s head. This lasted just as long as he was merely a Cardinal. But when he became Pope Benedict XVI, something happened. Folks … Read more
No matter the results of this election, one thing is clear: half of America has announced through its vote that it does not implicitly trust the public health experts. As both Donald Trump and Joe Biden made clear time and again, part of this election was a referendum on the pandemic and its management. Mr. … Read more
“These are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others,” said Groucho Marx. In the land down under, many are wishing the Catholic Church would be so flexible, especially as it relates to a recent ecumenical ethical development. Australian Catholic, Anglican, and Greek Orthodox archbishops authored a joint letter on August … Read more
“Where is the road which leads us to Jesus Christ? It is before our eyes: it is the Church. It is our duty to recall to everyone, great and small, the absolute necessity we are under to have recourse to this Church in order to work out our eternal salvation.” — Pope Saint Pius X … Read more
In 1969, long before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger made a prediction about the post–Vatican II Catholic Church. Instead of a growing and dynamic Church reaching all cultures, he envisioned a smaller and less influential Church: “She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. … Read more
Attacking the four dissenters in the July 24 Supreme Court decision refusing relief to the chapel that sued Nevada for imposing more restrictive indoors assembly numbers on churches than on casinos, New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse accused them of pursuing a religious “crusade.” We all know that crusades are led by sectarian ignoramuses whose … Read more
When I was working as a chaplain at a Catholic high school, the parents of a ninth-grade boy made an appointment to see me. Jimmy was a bright, good-looking and popular student from a respectable Presbyterian family. Mother and father turned up on time, neatly dressed, and well-mannered. After some small talk, Jimmy’s mother expressed … Read more
There have been countless reforms proposed for the Catholic Church. There seems to be a disenchantment with God, Church, and worship that can only be described as an attack on the divine. Those inside and outside the Church attempt to expound on the elephant in the room or the enemy that is tearing her apart. … Read more
The Associated Press released a dubious report claiming the Catholic Church in the United States received over $1.4 billion in Covid-19 aid which was used, in part, as payoff money for families who have experienced sexual abuse by priests. Across the globe, the Associated Press claims, “the church’s haul may have reached—or even exceeded—$3.5 billion, … Read more
I rounded the corner at the grocery store not long ago and came across a woman who froze stock still. Her whole body became rigid, as if she had seen a fearful specter ready to drag her down to hell. She plastered herself along the opposite side of the aisle and stepped ever so gingerly … Read more
There is a strong push from President Donald Trump, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and educators across the country for schools to resume in-person, full-time instruction despite the fears and dangers associated with Covid-19. Even the CDC issued an article recently on the importance of reopening America’s schools this fall, estimating that it is actually … Read more
The response to Covid-19 has resulted in a flood of restrictions on our behavior and activities, including within the Church. Initially, the bishops in the United States suspended the public celebration of Mass. If you weren’t a cleric, then it’s unlikely you could go to Mass anywhere in America from mid-March to mid-May. Then dioceses … Read more
As the initial panic of the coronavirus crisis subsides, those who fostered fear as a means to assume powers previously unimagined now find themselves scrambling to maintain leadership among the many who did not experience either the death of someone close to them or even an acquaintance with someone mildly infected. Even now those unwilling … Read more
That the Church continues to canonize men, women, and children of “heroic virtue,” and to encourage their public veneration by the faithful, is not, however it may seem, the secular equivalent of The X Factor. They are not, in that sense, winners of a spiritual talent show, although we could say with Saint Paul that … Read more
As a new wave of protests erupt in response to the death of Rayshard Brooks, many Catholics are finding themselves angered, frustrated, and perplexed, but not in the way that immediately comes to mind. For months, we have been told that we must be exiled from the public celebration of the Mass, and, in some … Read more
As anno domini 2020 limps into another month, we are all bound to hear a thousand times, “I can’t believe it’s June already!” (or some slight variation thereof.) We heard it in May, and in April before that. This is one of the strangest side effects of the coronavirus crisis: it has wrecked our sense … Read more
Editor’s note: This open letter was written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to President Donald J. Trump in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and anti-police riots in the United States. It is reprinted here. June 7, 2020 Holy Trinity Sunday Mr. President, In recent months we have been witnessing the formation of two opposing sides … Read more
“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” So wrote Vladimir Lenin. The Communist Revolution which he engineered did seem to pack many decades of change into a relatively short time. The old tsarist order was quickly overthrown, and, almost overnight, Russia was transformed from a Christian country to an … Read more
It’s been a strange and difficult semester for Catholic schools and colleges. Our institutions offer a unique social, spiritual, and intellectual formation that depends on personal presence, but students have been exiled from our classrooms, chapels, and athletic fields. For Catholic educators who have struggled to build on the strong relationships formed in the first … Read more